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It is therefore not surprising that Sweden was
one of the ten founding members of IUVSTA.
Pr. Gösta Brogren from Chalmers University,
Gothenburg, was present at the founding
meeting and he was the Swedish councillor for
the triennium 1962-65. It was, however, not until
1973 that the Swedish Vacuum Society was
formally founded. An Interim Committee had
been formed on January 21, 1972. The chairman
of that committee was Pr. Stig Hagström and
the secretary was Hans Ottosson, both from
Linköping University. Contacts were made with
Scandinavian colleagues in an attempt to form
a Scandinavian Vacuum Society. However these
attempts were not successful. One of the activities
of the Interim Committee was to start publishing
a news bulletin, “Vakuum Nytt”, the first issue
of which was published on February 10, 1972.
The last issue of this publication was No. 72
published in June 2006. The Interim Committee
called a Charter Meeting on June 14, 1973, and
on this date the Swedish Vacuum Society was
formed. The first Board of Directors (BoD) was:
Gunnar Schön (President), Roland Jacobsson
(Vice president and secretary), Lars Yström
(Treasurer) and Alex Albrecht.
Contact with IUVSTA had been established
previously on January 25, 1973 at an Executive
Council Meeting in London and a formal
application for membership was submitted to
the 22ndExecutive Council Meeting in Madrid on
September 27, 1973. Membership was granted
by the IUVSTA General Meeting on March 26,
1974 in Kyoto, Japan.
Among the members of the Swedish Vacuum
Society who have served IUVSTA extensively
are Hans Ottosson, STD Secretary from 1974 to
1983, Sven-Erik Karlsson, STD Secretary 1983-
89, and Lars Westerberg who was chair of the
Publications Committee 1995-2001 and editor
of the IUVSTA Web home page 1996-2000 and
editor of the News Bulletin 1997-2001. Lars
Montelius is now the president of IUVSTA. Other
Swedish delegates who have served in various
capacities are Sören Berg, Anders Flodström,
Lars Hultman, Lars Johansson, Ulf Helmersson,
Ulf Karlsson, Pär Omling, Lars Samuelson and
Jan-Eric Sundgren.
The Swedish Vacuum Society has contributed
to IUVSTA conference activities in Sweden
by organising an International Symposium on
Vacuum and Thin Films Technology in Uppsala,
August 31-September 3, 1976, and the Sixth
International Conference on Thin Films (ICTF- 6) in
Sweden has a long tradition of developments in vacuum science and technology, including the
turbo molecular pumps developed by Pr. Manne Siegbahn for X-ray spectrometers in Uppsala
starting in the 1920’s and for accelerators in Stockholm the 1940’s. When IUVSTA was founded
there was no formal Swedish vacuum society. There were, however, several research groups
that had a need for new developments in the vacuum field. There was a demand for cleaner
vacuum systems and lower pressure for surface science using ESCA spectrometers.
THE SWEDISH VACUUM SOCIETY
Lars Westerberg
Professor Gösta Brogren
1995, a founding
member of IUVSTA.
(Photo L. Westerberg)